Compurgators

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Persons who testified under oath to support and validate a defendant's sworn statement in medieval courts
2. Individuals who gave sworn evidence in support of an accused person's oath or credibility during early legal trials
3. Witnesses who vouched for a defendant's honesty or innocence by swearing oaths alongside them in medieval legal systems

Etymology: Compurgators were the neighbours, kinsmen or fellow townsmen who swore alongside an accused person, vouching that his oath was true. The practice belonged to early legal systems, where a defendant's word could be strengthened by a chorus of sworn supporters rather than tested by investigation. The plural form comes from "compurgator", which is the English form of a term borrowed from Medieval Latin "compurgator" or Middle French "compurgateur". Both routes lead back to the Latin verb "compurgare", built from "com-", meaning "together", and "purgare", meaning "to purify" or "to clear". The sense of clearing someone of a charge is what the Latin verb carries, so a compurgator was, at root, one who cleared an accused person together with him.

Synonyms: oath-helper